Let’s FIT a Summary Together!

A Reading to Learn Lesson

by Christine Haley

 

Rationale: The goal of reading instruction is individual comprehension and understanding. In order to understand texts, students must learn effective strategies to practice building comprehension. Summarization is an effective, research-based strategy that aids children in comprehending text. Three rules make up the strategy of summarization: deleting trivia and redundancies, super ordination items and events, and compositing a statement to cover everything the writer is saying. In this lesson, students will be in pairs of two and analyze an expository text and break it down into details that lead to the main idea, using our reading chair graphic organizer. To simplify the three rules of the summarization strategy, we will tell students to fish out the fluff, prioritize the big stuff, and write a big idea sentence. Our goal is for our students to learn the strategies necessary to be able to understand and comprehend a text while independently reading. Summarization will allow them to pick out the big ideas from expository texts, demonstrating an understanding of topic sentences and an ability to comprehend.

 

 

Materials:

Paper

Pencils

Bookmark containing 5 steps of summarizing

            Summarization steps:

1. Pick out important details that are necessary to the story.

2. Pick out the less important or repeated ideas from the passage      and eliminate them. 

3. Highlight the important and necessary details using key words.

4. Pick a topic sentence

5. Invent a topic sentence if there is none.

Poster board graphic to show class the “5 Summarization Steps”

Summarization Criteria Checklist (1 for each student- for teacher use)

Article: Be a Fit Kid (kidsheath.org)

Short spacecraft paragraph for modeling

 

Procedure:

1. Say: Boys and Girls, today we are going to learn about comprehending while we read. Does anyone know what comprehend means? (take student answers) That's right! To comprehend means to understand the meaning of the text. Today we are going to learn ways to help us understand our reading. A skill we will learn today is called summarization. A summarization is when we review what we have read and use the information that will allow us to retell this story to someone without reading them the whole book. A summarization is shorter than the original text, and it only utilizes the very important information.  This means there will be information we use and information we won't use. Do you think you can help me do that today? Let’s get started!

 

 

2. Say: To help us summarize, we are going to use 5 steps. These steps will help you determine what information is important and what is not important. (Show large poster board with 5 steps for summarizing) The first step is to pick out important details that we think are necessary to the story. Number two says to pick out the less important ideas or ideas that are repeated and take them away.  Number three says to highlight the important and necessary details using key words.  Next, we pick a topic sentence.  Our last step is to invent a topic sentence if we don't find one in the text.  I’m going to pass out bookmarks to each of you that have these steps on them so you won't forget our 5 steps of summarization.  You can use these whenever you need a little help or a reminder on how to summarize.

 

3. Say: Now, I am going to show you how I summarize a short paragraph. This paragraph comes from an article on “Highlights Kids” and it is about a spacecraft heading high into the sky. Let’s take a look:

 

“Spacecraft have flown past planets near and far. No people are on board these spacecraft. But their cameras have shown us craters on Mercury, clouds on Venus, and volcanoes on Mars. We’ve seen colorful storms on Jupiter and the beautiful rings of Saturn. We’ve even seen the distant green and blue planets Uranus and Neptune. But poor Pluto is so far away that it’s been left out in the cold.

Until now.

On July 14, a spacecraft will sail past this mysterious world and will finally show us what it looks like”

 

Step 1 of my summarization steps says to pick out important details. I think some important details are that spacecraft fly past plants, and that their cameras can show us the details of those planets. Pluto hasn’t been photographed yet by these spacecraft. Soon, it will be.

 

Step 2 says to pick our unimportant ideas. I don’t think its very important to note the specific craters, volcanoes, and clouds being photographed on the planets. I also don’t think we need to note that Pluto will be photographed on July 14. That seems too specific for our summarization!

 

Step 3 says to find key words… I think those are spacecraft, camera, and Pluto. Those seem like words that contribute to the main idea. A summary is starting to form in my head!

 

Step 4… a topic sentence. I don’t see one of those in this passage. The topic sentence has to explain the main idea of the passage and I don’t see one here! Looks like we need to move on to Step 5.

 

Step 5 says to come up with our own topic sentence if we can’t find one in the paragraph! I am going to use all of my key words and the main ideas that have been travelling through my head… Our topic sentence will be, “Pluto is the only planet that has not been photographed by spacecraft, but soon it will join the ranks of the other planets and be photographed.” This sentence has all the key words, all the key information, and addresses the main point of the paragraph. I love this sentence! Does anyone else have a good topic sentence they would like to share? (Allow student responses and write all possible sentences on the board. Allow the class to choose their favorite.) Sometimes, it takes a few tries to come up with the perfect topic sentence. That is okay! Formulating a good summary sentence is hard work and you are going to get better and better with practice.

 

4. Say: Let’s talk about an important vocabulary word you’ll be reading: active. To be active means to move around, and engage in physical activity. For example, “I love to be active by playing outside with my friends.” My friends and I run around, play games, and spend time being physical. We are being active! What are some ways you could be active today? Finish this sentence: After school, I like to be active by… (Take students’ responses for possible endings of the sentence)

 

5. Say: I am going to place you with a partner and give you a copy of the article “Be a Fit Kid” to read and try to summarize. Take turns reading every other paragraph with your partner and use your 5 Steps to Summarize on each paragraph. As you go, write down the topic sentences. If you need help, look to your steps on your bookmark and always remember to look for important information. We need all the necessary details to support our chair so we can sit down and read! 

 

When finished, have the students discuss with other groups their choices for details and main ideas. This allows them to collaborate about their different ideas without me telling them how to do it. During this time I will walk around monitoring their progress.

 

 

6. For assessment, the students will write a brief coherent paragraph summarizing the article. I want them to use the steps that we went over but not just list them, I want their ideas to flow and make sense.  I will use the bookmarks as my own checklist to make sure that they used all of the steps of summarization correctly.

 

Say: Now, I would like you to take a few minutes by yourself to go back through your topic sentences. Put them together to create one large paragraph, and this is your summary! Write it in your neatest handwriting, and turn it in to me when you are finished.

 

Collect each student’s summary and evaluate the summarization using the following criteria:

 

__ Collected important information

__ Ignored trivia and examples in summary.

__ Significantly reduced the text from the original

__ Sentences brought ideas together from each paragraph

__ Sentences organized coherently into essay form.

 

Quiz:

1. Is it more active to play outside or to watch T.V.?

2. What kinds of foods do healthy kids eat?

3. What is one healthy food that gives your body fuel to run around and to grow?

4. Why is breakfast so important?

5. Name 2 drinks that are very healthy for you.

6. What does your tummy feel like when you are full?

7. What things can your parents do to help you be a healthy kid?

 

Resources:

Caroline Gagnon, Summarize to Change Your Lives

http://ceg00221.wix.com/miss-gagnons-reading#!reading-to-learn/c13dq

 

http://kidshealth.org/kid/stay_healthy/weight/fit_kid.html#cat20290 

 

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